HISTORY – Kenyan Runner Sabastian Sawe Becomes First Man Ever to Finish Marathon in Under 2 Hours
I can't believe in 1954 we really thought some British dude named Roger was the epitome of running, because he ran a sub-4-minute mile. The entire continent of Africa really exposed his ass once they got working stopwatches. Now we've got dudes running 26 consecutive miles at a near 4:30 clip.
We're in the thick of marathon season. One of the wildest marathon seasons in modern memory. I have no idea if any of that is true, but it does seem like there's been a lot of viral-ish marathon moments in the past weeks. At two separate marathons, both Delaware & Los Angeles, we had the should-be-winner get walked down in the final seconds.
And that LA Marathon runner who lost by 0.01 seconds only lost because earlier in the race a fellow countrywoman jumped in front of him waving a Kenyan flag and led him down the wrong path.
Then over in Boston, we didn't quite have a photo finish, but we did have two separate instances of runners legs giving out in the final stretch. I found it a little funny that the man who's legs gave out immediately had runners come to his aid and carry him to the finish…
Advertisement
Whereas this poor woman who collapsed with just over a mile to go was forced to one-legged crab walk her way to the finish line. At least she had the enthusiastic support of foam finger guy.
Chivalry is dead. Some things. Rico Bosco would never, etc. etc.
But the most noteworthy feat of marathon running happened in London over the weekend. For the first time in the history of marathons (under legal running conditions), Sebastian Sawe became the first person to ever complete a marathon in under 2 hours. And 11-seconds later, Yomif Kejelcha became the second person to do it.
Poor Yomif. He probably spent his whole aspiring to me the first man to break 2 hours. He just did it 11 seconds too late. And for 3rd place finisher Jacob Kiplimo who ran a time of 2:00:38 (which was the world record when he woke up that morning)… I mean, nobody is remembering that guy's name. If you're not going to break 2 hours anymore, you might as well just stay home. Take a page out of Derrick Rose's book. Save your legs for your son's graduation.
Advertisement
Thoughts and prayers to Robert Johnson of the Lets Run message boards. Fingers crossed nobody took him up on his bet. If only he'd stopped this paragraph after "before I'm 50".
Never bet against the human race, Robert. People get faster. It's what they do. It's evolution or something. Now get back to me once they break 90 minutes.